Endless Space preview

[Kekvit Irae]

Do 4X gamers care about metacritic anyway?

They shouldn't unless they want to contribute to the downfall of honest journalism and publishing.

[Monk]

They shouldn't unless they want to contribute to the downfall of honest journalism and publishing.

The unfortunate reality is that many gamers still cling to metacritic as if it means something.. and so do publishers.

Endless Space was fantastic for what I played in the Alpha and Beta. The only hang up i had about it back then was how easy it was to stalemate with another faction. It was quite easy to expand and become powerful, only for a faction to do so at the other end of the map leading you both into a huge intergalactic war in the end game. A war that had no end as you were both perfectly matched. Balance was a little off too, but then again that was pre-release. It also had the misfortune of being not quite what I was looking for, but that's a subjective hang up.

Honestly, the game ran better in alpha than most games do when they are launched. I was surprised it wasn't released months ago.

[Voigtkampf]

My current game is developing...oddly... I've been running a fairly small galaxy with 4 opponents, two of them being Pilgrims. They are breeding like bunnies and have expanded a lot. I usually concentrate on development in these games, so I eventually have to pick up the paste with military build-up, but these guys, once let to develop unchecked, spread like plague. But soon enough, here comes first peace offer; I accept it, hell, I can't even fight a war yet! But soon enough, I get peace offers from all opponents, then treaties to cross into each others territory, so we end up all living in a fine and dandy peaceful universe. Wondering where that will take me...

But the game is simply awesome, soundtrack is pure gold, and I am looking forward to giving it more time today. I might even get used to the combat being more of a luck thing, even though I was kind hoping to have some Sins of Solar Empire in my Endless Space...

[Kekvit Irae]

After watching a few Let's Plays of the game, I decided to dive in. So far, it's doing a mediocre job. Not fantastic, not horrible, just... mediocre.

Pros:
+You construct one building per star system at a time, rather than one per planet. All planets in the system you colonized add to the total resource count, which means that the planets in that system will collectively build. This cuts down on your attention to macro extensively, which I really like.
+Has a more MoO2 feel than Gal Civ 2.

Cons:
-Combat is rock-paper-scissors, with virtually no control over the battle. I long for the days when you could actually control ships in combat, like in Star Wars Rebellion or, of course, MoO2.
-Graphics options are pathetic. You can only set pre-designed quality with no customizing.
-THIS:

These are the suggestions/disccusions that the development team has already looked at and have decides are either unfeasible to implement or go against their vision of the game.

This means not only have these ideas already been suggested at least once but they have been rejected so please refrain from making yet another post on the same topic.

Play by email - Play remotely X Come on! It's freaking 2012!

This attitude REALLY pisses me off. This is the kind of thing that makes me regret buying the game in the first place. Need I remind them how successful Frozen Synapse, or other similar games, have been simply because you can go to bed during the middle of a multiplayer game and then pick up right where you started in the morning? A 4X space sim takes hours to complete. I simply don't have that much time to invest if I want a multiplayer game.

[Kekvit Irae]

Ok, after playing several hours worth, I have come to the conclusion that this is a bad game and you should feel bad for playing it.

Combat is a slog. Pick your three cards, take a shower, go to the mall, go out on a date, then come back and hope the combat will eventually end. The card system is cute the first three or four times, but after that you just want to autoresolve everything to spare yourself the hassle of watching a TV program in-game. At least with a real TV, you have a remote control.

The AI cheats. A LOT. Early in the game when I barely had two combat ships to my name, the AI had ten (and no, I'm not exaggerating) fleets full of combat ships. It all comes down to a stalemate, even if you have superior ships and tech. Apparently, from what I've heard, this was a big problem in the Alpha, and it looks like it still persists on release.

Game design is horrible. "War has been declared on you." Yeah, ok. Are you going to tell me who declared war on me? No? Well you too. If you're in an alliance, and the ally declares peace on an enemy, you receive NO popup or notification at all. You're left wondering why your invasion of a planet was halted all of a sudden. And let's not forget the bug that prevents your ships from ever moving out of the former-AI's system (even to a friendly or allied system) until the cease-fire period is up. And how the can I or the AI attack each other's fleets if there's a cease fire? You can, which means the cease-fire is bugged too.

this game.

[Voigtkampf]

Harsh words, but I can understand the sentiment - to some point.

The battle is simply what it is; it is a disappointment for me as well, I was hoping for a more of "hands-on" fight style. But on the bright side, it certainly does not last too long, perhaps two minutes tops, plus it can be auto-resolved.

Define "early in the game"? What turn is it? What faction is it? Difficulty setting and number of opposing factions?

Point to the fact that "War has been declared on you!" is not very informative; I declared war on my neighbor and get that message. Well, should be easily fixed, that omission does not make the entire game design "horrible".

But I guess you made up your mind, sorry you didn't enjoy this one.

[Fragony]

Ok, after playing several hours worth, I have come to the conclusion that this is a bad game and you should feel bad for playing it.

Combat is a slog. Pick your three cards, take a shower, go to the mall, go out on a date, then come back and hope the combat will eventually end. The card system is cute the first three or four times, but after that you just want to autoresolve everything to spare yourself the hassle of watching a TV program in-game. At least with a real TV, you have a remote control.

The AI cheats. A LOT. Early in the game when I barely had two combat ships to my name, the AI had ten (and no, I'm not exaggerating) fleets full of combat ships. It all comes down to a stalemate, even if you have superior ships and tech. Apparently, from what I've heard, this was a big problem in the Alpha, and it looks like it still persists on release.

Game design is horrible. "War has been declared on you." Yeah, ok. Are you going to tell me who declared war on me? No? Well you too. If you're in an alliance, and the ally declares peace on an enemy, you receive NO popup or notification at all. You're left wondering why your invasion of a planet was halted all of a sudden. And let's not forget the bug that prevents your ships from ever moving out of the former-AI's system (even to a friendly or allied system) until the cease-fire period is up. And how the can I or the AI attack each other's fleets if there's a cease fire? You can, which means the cease-fire is bugged too.

this game.

Might like this
http://www.strategyprime.net/starbase-orion-review/
Oh wait you can't play it muhahaha revenge.

[Martok]

Thus far, Endless Space is sounding a lot like a Paradox title: It'll be good some day, but only once it's fully patched and the AI receives major improvements. I think this one is going on my "will buy -- eventually" list.


On the other hand, there's always StarDrive and Legends of Pegasus to look forward to...

[Monk]

These are the suggestions/disccusions that the development team has already looked at and have decides are either unfeasible to implement or go against their vision of the game.

This means not only have these ideas already been suggested at least once but they have been rejected so please refrain from making yet another post on the same topic.

Play by email - Play remotely X Come on! It's freaking 2012!

Well that's just silly...

[Voigtkampf]

The Endless Space review is now up, share your opinions. In short, good game with some bugs and incomplete features, but will with highest probability get fixed and improved very fast. Cheers!

[Kekvit Irae]

The Endless Space review is now up, share your opinions. In short, good game with some bugs and incomplete features, but will with highest probability get fixed and improved very fast. Cheers!

So how much were you paid by Amplitude Studios for four stars?

But seriously, and I mean no offense, but this is the reason why I don't trust reviews. You need to work on your scoring system a bit. If a review is mostly negative (and it was; I counted), then it should reflect that in the score. A good way of measuring score is start at 100%, remove all sentences (or whole statements) that are neutral (or just those that give background, such as the introduction), and then count how many parts are negative about the game. Subtract that percentage from the 100%, and there's your final score.

I have gone through your review and did just this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

+This is most likely the cleanest, leanest, meanest UI we’ve ever seen!
+Beautiful, intuitive, making all the game’s features easily accessible and only a couple of clicks away.
+Overall, the artistic approach to the game, coupled with the sense for technical functionality has done true wonders for this title.
+Zooming in and out all over the galaxy, getting into system’s view, picking out planets and assigning build orders is swift and enjoyable, so that one actually gets the feel of sliding between different areas of your empire management.

-Currently, there is no talk about modding tools and their release yet, even though there was some showing of the principles how the game was designed by the developers.
+However, there was a loud call for Steam Workshop support for this game, but no matter how exactly it turns, the modding future for Endless Space looks like a winner.
+Combined with the strategic depth of the game, modding might give it a longevity beyond what even devs thought possible.

+Soundtrack of the game is incredible, and well worth having; if you pay a couple of bucks more for admiral’s or emperor’s edition, you will get the Endless Space soundtrack and may enjoy it even outside the game.
+The music is perfect, giving you the sense of the slow play within the vast regions of space, perfectly calming and soothing, the kind of compositions you might listen for hours and simply keep relaxing.
+Sound effects are suitable and well executed, they too fit well in the surroundings.

-We didn’t like the space combat before, and we don’t really like it now.
-Personally, a flat 2D turn based combat aka MOO2 would be preferable to the “on rails” fights of ES, where you pick three cards (corresponding to the different tactics) and hope for the best.
-I found myself in many cases auto-resolving the space combats, especially when I had an hero admiral in command.
-After all, it seems that the combat itself will stay the same, depending to which extent it can be modded by players across the world.

+But considering all the circumstances and indications (plus my firm intention to keep on trucking with Endless Space), the game seems downright superb.
-A slight disappointment was the specific nature of the combat, but not because it is bad per se, but because we would love to have the actual control over the ships, whether in 3D space or in a 2D version of battlefield, hell, even if it were in a turn-based mode!
+But the game is still a remarkable piece of strategy, and making a full game out of fleet fights would have probably postponed the entire development for a year!

-But there are actual problems in this game concerning AI and its cheating; AI gets insane bonuses per each difficulty, and doesn’t really change its behavior.
-Left unchecked, almost every species will spread like a wildfire throughout the galaxy and will gobble up systems like there is no tomorrow.
-Pirates being what they are, or rather should be, are incredibly overpowered in the game if left unchecked, so that they can, if no species spreads throughout a certain region, grow more powerful than all of the factions, and very fast!
-Fortunately they can be turned off in the starting menu, but they should be nerfed anyway, and fast.
-AI is cheating with the fleet building and is also cheating in the research department.
-Diplomacy system is incomplete and has inexplicable features, your ally making peace with the mutual enemy stops you from being able to attack the enemy systems, because the peace treaty that your ally signs up binds you as well!
-Many times in the game, the AI will demand something, mostly some rare element, or propose a deal; you can either accept it or refuse it, there is no option to alter the deal, and that is disappointing.
-Also, my relationship with my neighboring species has deteriorated to the point of war with the reasoning that “my territorial expansion makes them believe I am up to no good”; the fact that I didn’t colonize a single new system during the last 150 moves doesn’t seem to matter much.
-A 4X game like this should exceed this pitiful level of diplomacy by far.
-One more thing that made me giggle: in my first game, I’ve lost all of my planets and was effectively defeated. There was the notification that I had just lost the game and the option “would you like to keep playing?”. I said yes, just for giggles, the game went for another turn, then the same message appeared. I find it hard to see why the game thinks I would like to keep playing when I don’t have a single ship or planet anymore…

-After all, the AI and the various omissions one can spot only after a longer time spent in the game have reduced the overall enjoyment.
+The positive news is that the devs will with almost an absolute certainty fix all the broken features and iron out the current bugs in the game, but on the other side, we need to assess the game in its current state.
+And if we then consider the possibilities that the modding community and open-minded developers are presenting, well, it seems as the sky alone is the limit. And in this case, it is full of stars!

+ means positive
- means negative

I have taken out the sentences or statements I felt you were neutral or didn't contribute to a positive or negative feeling of the game. I have also removed summaries of statements or paragraphs, as they were simply summarizing what you have already stated.
We are left with 17 out of 30 parts that are negative, leaving the final score at 44%. On a five star rating system, we're looking at 2.2, or two stars if you round down.

Please don't take this as flaming or trolling, but rather as constructive criticism.